A Friend in Need
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: After striking up an unlikely friendship with Draco Malfoy, Daphne thinks that things are looking up in her life. But the Malfoy Family Values must come first. Written for Raven


\- Year Long Scavenger Hunt: C-23 Write about a wedding

\- Hogwarts Secret Santa: Written for Raven (Raven of the Shadows)

\- 2017 Drabbles: Horseshoe

Thank you to Lexi (Book of Hope) for the help with the plot!

 **Pairings/Characters:** Draco/Daphne

 **Word Count:** 2,247

* * *

Daphne never thought she would be someone who would help Draco.

She didn't really care much for Draco Malfoy while she was a student at Hogwarts. In fact, she pretty much loathed him. She hated the way her friends pined after him, especially Pansy. She hated his snobbish good looks and the way he slicked his hair back so that he resembled his father. Most of all, she hated the way he spoke down to everyone around him, as though they were less than dirt on his shoe.

The Greengrass sisters had been brought up with different ideals than the usual maniacal Pureblood families. Their mother taught them from an early age that blood didn't define a person, neither did gender, money, or race. Everyone was equal. So, for Daphne to have to spend seven years watching Draco Malfoy prance around the Hogwarts castle as though he had been crowned prince was enough to make her want to vomit.

She never, ever imagined that the two would become friends.

oOo

Working the night shift at St. Mungo's was a steady job for Daphne. She was nocturnal by nature, so it was easy for her to get into a routine of waking up for lunchtime, enjoying the day and then starting work at six. She would usually be home and tucked up in bed for five in the morning the next day.

Every day was the same, aside from the differences of patients that came through the hospital doors, and Daphne enjoyed the routine. The routine continued peacefully, until one night halfway through her second year on the job.

She was just leaving work when the sound of someone clearing their throat from the waiting area distracted her. She glanced over, shocked that someone was here so early in the morning, and felt a surge of recognition as she looked at the back of the pale, white-blonde head. "Draco?" she called, making her way over.

He looked around, glancing at her with red-rimmed eyes and a sickly complexion. Initially he seemed confused, but recognition soon registered on his face. "Daphne," he murmured, looking mildly horrified. "I didn't think I would see anyone I knew here."

"The wizarding world is a small one," Daphne replied quietly. "But don't worry, I can pretend I didn't see you here."

Draco looked grateful.

"Are you…" Daphne paused, racking her brain for the right words. Asking him if he was 'okay' was ridiculous. Everyone knew that the Malfoy family was trusted in very few circles anymore, and Draco was seemingly to blame for their downfall. "How are you holding up?" she said, trying to sound light-hearted.

"You don't need to waste your time talking to me," Draco muttered gruffly. "No one in their right mind would want to be seen talking with the disgraced heir to the Malfoy family, right? That's why I _still_ haven't been seen yet." He raised his voice on the last sentence, so that it echoed across the dimly-lit waiting room. The night-time receptionist shot a venomous glance in his direction.

Daphne sat down beside him on an orange plastic chair, and shifted her bag onto the seat next to her. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Draco raised a thin, blonde eyebrow. "Weren't you just on your way out?"

Daphne shrugged. "I can spare another ten minutes."

"Okay." Draco took a deep breath, glancing around to make sure that no one else was listening in on their conversation, and began to speak. "I didn't know where else to go. I think…I think I'm depressed. I can't sleep, I can't work. I don't have any friends. I don't have anywhere else to go but my family home, and I _hate_ being there. I hate being around my father, who is constantly giving me dirty looks and comments about how I have let them all down. I hate being molly-coddled by my mother. I'm twenty, for Merlin's sake. I'm not a child anymore. I don't have the money to move away from them, because I can't get a respectable job with my reputation. Of course, we have money, but Father wouldn't allow me to take any of my inheritance if he thought I was using it to move away. He won't let me leave the manor until I'm betrothed to be married, and even then, he would prefer for me to live in that house with my wife." Draco took another huge breath, practically gasping for air after he finished his spiel. "I am just so smothered by them. I have _no one_ else but them." He slouched back in his chair after finishing, as though he was exhausted from just talking.

"How do you feel now?" Daphne asked.

"Much better, actually."

She smiled brightly. "I don't think you need the hospital, Draco. I think you just need a friend."

oOo

Daphne never thought that she would become friends with Draco.

Three months after meeting Draco at St. Mungo's, he was living with her and her family at the Greengrass estate. They had a guest house on the grounds, and Daphne's mother had been happy to offer him a place to stay. Her father had been less than appreciative, given his background, but Mrs. Greengrass was quick to remind him of their feelings about prejudice.

She would go to work as normal, and when she sloped back home in the morning Draco would usually still be awake, sitting on the swing-chair on the porch of the guest house, reading a book or dozing off. He always waited for Daphne to come home so they could talk.

She soon learned that Draco found immense healing in their daily chats. While he had been embarrassed about letting so many of his feelings free in their first conversation at the hospital, he had learnt not to feel humiliated about his perfectly normal feelings. Daphne soon found that Draco wasn't the pompous snob that she had always viewed him as, but was instead a very sensitive, very broken soul.

That air of arrogance had been just that: an air to hide his true feelings.

"I've never told anyone the things I tell you," Draco murmured one morning, as they sat on the swing chair together. "I never thought I would admit these things to anyone."

"You're not a child anymore, Draco. Things change when you grow."

Draco took Daphne's hand in his and ran his fingers up her forearm. "You've never told me anything."

Daphne smiled. "I've told you lots of things."

"Yeah, but I want to know something that no one else knows."

Daphne looked at their entwined hands and parted her lips carefully. Her mouth felt awfully dry all of a sudden. "Okay." She took a breath, and stared out at the sunrise. "Did you ever wonder why I work at St. Mungo's, when the rest of my family has jobs at the Ministry or the bank?"

"The thought crossed my mind."

"I was depressed once, too." Daphne paused, listening to the birds chirping in the distance and to the sound of Draco steadily breathing. "After the war. After something dreadful happened to me."

"What happened?" Draco turned to face her, his pale eyes boring into hers.

"I was hit by a rogue curse while I was trying to herd some of the younger Slytherins out of the castle. It was heading towards my sister." Daphne's voice wobbled dangerously. "I had to do something. She was so tiny—it could have killed her!"

"What curse was it?"

"I don't know." Daphne picked at a loose hangnail, and Draco closed his fingers over hers to stop her fidgeting. "I jumped in front of Astoria before the curse could hit her. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital."

"You were okay, though?"

"I thought so at first," Daphne sighed. "Everyone thought I had just been knocked unconscious by some particularly nasty stunning spell. But the Healers ran a lot of tests. They found out…"

"You can trust me." Draco's voice was level and calm, and it gave Daphne strength.

"They found out that the curse did significant damage to my body. I'll never…I'll never be able to have children." Finally, Daphne's voice broke, and she choked back the lump at the back of her throat, determined not to cry in front of him.

Draco was silent for a long time, but he finally put an arm around Daphne's shoulders. She moved to rest her head on his arm, but he bumped his forehead against hers as he turned his head to face her. She felt uncomfortable embarrassment at being so close to his face, but before she could apologise, he pressed his cool, slightly chapped lips against hers.

oOo

Daphne never thought that she would entertain a relationship with Draco.

It didn't go unnoticed. After a few visits to the Malfoy Manor with Daphne in tow, Draco was called to the Manor alone. When he entered the drawing room, Narcissa and Lucius were sitting together on a black velvet loveseat, directly opposite Daphne, who was wiping her red-rimmed eyes with her sleeve. Draco sat down next to Daphne automatically, and gave her a questioning look. _Why are you here? What's the matter?_ His opalescent eyes seemed to beg for an answer to his unspoken questions. Daphne looked away.

"We have called you here today to discuss your relationship with Daphne Greengrass," said Lucius in a brisk tone. As usual, he was treating a meeting with his son as though it was one of his business interactions. "It cannot continue."

"I'm sorry, Draco," Narcissa whispered. Her eyes were weepy too, as though she had been on the verge of tears all evening.

"What are you talking about?" Draco put his arm around Daphne defensively. "Who are you to decide who I am in a relationship with? I'm not a boy anymore."

"I'm sure that Daphne has been excellent company for you for these last few months, but it's time to look towards the future," Lucius sneered. "I ran a background check on Miss. Greengrass. She cannot provide this family with a heir, so she cannot marry into this family."

Draco wanted to fall through chair he was sitting on and into the core of the earth. He didn't know why he was so surprised. _Of course_ his father would have this reaction. All Lucius cared about was blood purity and moral values and suitable heirs or wives. He didn't care about _love_.

"Luckily for us, Miss. Greengrass has allowed you to propose to her sister."

Draco turned his gaze back to Daphne. Her face was hidden by her blonde hair, and her shoulders were shuddering with silent sobs. "What?"

"You heard me, Draco." Lucius continued. He stood up, a little slower now that he was aging considerably. Oh, how Draco wished he would drop down dead right there and then. "You will propose to Astoria Greengrass tomorrow evening. Your mother is going to give you your grandmother's engagement ring."

Draco watched in stunned silence as Narcissa removed a thin, platinum band from her ring finger, placed it in a small velvet box and passed it over to Draco. He stared into the box. The emeralds that lined the ring glittered maliciously up at him, taunting him.

"I don't know what to say." He snapped the box shut. He was lying. He knew _exactly_ what he wanted to say. He wanted to throw the box back at his weak, pathetic mother and tell his father exactly where to shove his _moral values._

But he wouldn't. Because he was just like his mother: weak and pathetic.

oOo

Daphne never thought that she would be a bridesmaid for Draco's wedding.

She was the only one. The wedding was considerably small for a Pureblood marriage, possibly due to the lack of friends that the two families had in the Pureblood community. Astoria had dressed her in swathes of mint-green chiffon and curled her blonde locks into an elegant braided style. Her mother brushed make-up onto her unprotesting face, and her father patted her back comfortingly as she stepped into her shoes. She didn't speak while Astoria was prepped for her wedding. She didn't speak while _she_ was prepped for Astoria's wedding. She had nothing to say.

She felt like Draco had looked on that first day that she properly spoke to him: broken and betrayed.

When Astoria had been led out onto the church aisle by their father, Mrs. Greengrass slipped a horseshoe onto Daphne's wrist. "Give this to Astoria when you meet her at the altar," she ordered quickly, before vanishing out into the church to mingle with the rest of the congregation.

Her cue came at a particularly loud jab of an organ key, and she swept out onto the aisle, walking behind her father and Astoria. The few faces on the pews stared up at her, but there was nothing happy or genuine about their expressions. She dared to look forwards at the altar, where Draco stood with his father. He was staring past his wife-to-be and gazing at Daphne, a single tear making its way down his cheek.

Perhaps the rest of their families thought he was shedding a tear of happiness for his wedding. Perhaps they thought the same of Daphne, as she silently sobbed while the priest asked them to repeat their vows.

But it didn't matter anymore.


End file.
